What’cha doin’? Finding identity relevance in consumption activities

Purpose It is widely recognized that consumers forge their identity through engaging in activities. However, extant literature has been conducted in a piecemeal fashion, resulting in a disconnected and potentially incomplete picture of why consumers appropriate activities into their daily lives. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to answer this question: why do consumers appropriate activities into their daily lives? Design/methodology/approach Building on video diaries and object biographies, this work introduces activity biographies: a method in which participants discuss identity relevant activities and display objects they incorporate into them. A total of 871 activity biographies were created by 112 international undergraduate students and were then thematically analyzed. Findings Consumers appropriate activities for a myriad of reasons: including to 1) change feelings of physical and cognitive place; 2) manage and control their emotions; 3) advance cognitive development; 4) control and groom their physical body; 5) socially interact with others; 6) recognize themselves; and 7) perform necessities of life. In addition, consumers engage in activities to change themselves on a personal or social level. Consumer change can occur during activity engagement or persist into the future, after they stop engaging in the activity. Research limitations/implications Recognizing the consumers rely on their activities to manage their identity, researchers are encouraged to explore how activities and brands, in tandem, impact consumers’ identity projects. Practical implications Consolidating this fragmented field, managers can now confidently align their brand meaning management strategy with one or more of the identified pathways. Marketers are encouraged to manage the meanings associated with their brand’s consumption activity in an effort to align brand and activity meanings. Originality/value This research extends the notion that consumer change facilitates activity appropriation by revealing that consumer change then shifts from being necessary to being the desired outcome of engaging in the activity. Importantly, consumers recognize the ability of some activities to change them into the future and, hence, rely on these activities to manage their identity project across contexts.